By Semih Tuna/ info@eurohoops.net
Basketball Champions League CEO Patrick Komninos met with a selected group of journallists and Eurohoops was among those invited.
The bottom line is that the competition will be held, as expected, next season with few changes as FIBA is still at odds with the EuroLeague. As Komninos said: “We have things in common and we have our differences. We are open to everything. We want to do what is best for the basketball envoriment. We believe that the winner of the Basketball Champions League would add valie to the EuroLeague. The competition should offer the same opportunity with the Eurocup”.
Of course, EuroLeague is not eager to offer something like that to FIBA and for one more season we will have four different continental club competitions, two organized by the EuroLeague (Turkish Airlines Euroleague, Eurocup) and two by FIBA (Basketball Champions League, FIBA Europe Cup).
The competition system of the Basketball Champions League will remain pretty much the same. A total of 54 clubs will be registered, 24 will compete directly in the regular season and the rest, 30 clubs in total, will play in the qualification rounds for eight open spots. The regular season will include a total of 32 teams divided in four groups of eight teams.
The 52 teams will be picked according to their results in their domestic leagues. “We aim to bring the best and that doesn’t mean the biggest brands, but the best teams”, said Komninos who confirmed that the winner of the competition will get 500.000 euros this year and one million euros next year.
Also according to the Champions League top official the Final Four in Tenerife can be already considered a success – the next Final Four will be also held on the city of one of the four finalists – and also the competitivenesss of Basketball Champions League is proven by the fact that 60% of the games were decided by difference of 10 points or less.
It remains to be seen how many teams from each country will compete in the Basketball Champions League next season, but the countries with strong domestic leagues will get the lion’s share. For example Turkey will have 3 teams among the 24 which will directly qualify to the regular season and one more in the qualification rounds.